Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Today I'd like to introduce you to my great-grandfather, Alvaro Borges Da Silva Madeira. He was born on October 5, 1859 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Joaquim Borges Da Silva and Maximiana De Sa Gomes Madeira. Joaquim was born in Madeira, Portugal and Maximiana was born in Sao Pedro, Rio Grande, Rio Grande du Sul, Brazil.Alvaro married Rosalia Rodrigues Vasques on January 27, 1890 in Rio Grande, Rio Grande du Sul, Brazil. They were the parents of five children:

According to some writing next to Alvaro's photo, Alvaro was a Naval Engineer. I'm not really sure what a Naval Engineer is or what a Naval Engineer did in Brazil during the late 1800s. I found the following definition for a Naval Engineer online.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Yep! My Grandma Willis Webster was right! Many years ago, she told my mom that my mom had Mayan ancestry. Grandma Willis was my mom's step-mother. My mom's mother died when my mom was four years old. Grandma Willis was the only grandma I ever knew on my mom's side of the family, so to me she was simply Grandma. And she was a very sweet and loving grandma.

Anyway, as I was saying, Grandma Willis claimed that my mom had Mayan ancestry through my mom's father (my grandfather) Debs Webster. Debs' mother, Esther Matus Villatoro (pictured below) was born in Arriaga, Chiapas, Mexico on September 18, 1893. She was the wife of my "Traveling Dentist" great-grandfather, Watson (Frederick) Emory Webster, who was born in Coolville, Athens, Ohio on February 14, 1864.

"…the Maya were centered in one geographical block covering all of the Yucatan Peninsula and modern-day Guatemala; Belize and parts of the Mexican states of Tabasco and Chiapas; and the western part of Honduras and El Salvador."

So, while it's true that my great-grandmother was born in Chiapas, and the Maya had lived in parts of Chiapas, and my grandmother claimed that my mom had Mayan ancestry, I still wouldn't have known for sure if part of my ancestry was, in fact, Mayan. Until now. You see, I took Family Tree DNA's autosomal DNA test called Family Finder. And I'd like to share my results with you.

My Native American ancestry is populated by both Columbian (which I don't understand) and Mayan ancestry.

And here's a handy map that was provided with the results as well:

So, what about the rest of my DNA test results?The Europe ResultI'm not surprised by the large European percentage. My father, Jan Albert Iverson, was half Norwegian and half Swedish. His ancestors go back for generations in both Norway and Sweden. And my great-grandfather on my mom's side, Watson (Frederick) Emory Webster, a.k.a. "The Traveling Dentist," was of English ancestry.

What is intriguing is that Sweden and Norway are not listed in the population list for Europe. Hmm. Orcadian is listed and Orcadians came from the Orkney Islands. According to Wikipedia, "Orkney was invaded and forcibly annexed by Norway in 875 and settled by the Norse." Finland borders both Sweden and Norway. According to another article in Wikipedia, "From the 12th until the start of the 19th century, Finland was a part of Sweden."Do these facts explain how my Norwegian and Swedish ancestry is listed in this DNA test?The Middle Eastern ResultI have to say that at first I was quite surprised by the Middle East (North African) test result. But, after doing some research, I'm not quite as surprised. My grandmother, Sarah Vasques Madeira (my mom's mother who passed away when my mom was four years old) was of Portuguese descent.

I have Portuguese ancestors from the Azores and Madeira. It's interesting to note how close those islands are to North Africa, especially the Island of Madeira. It's quite close to Morocco, which is in North Africa.

According to an article about the Portuguese Empire in Wikipedia, sailors from Portugal started to explore the coast of Africa in 1419. And the Portuguese colonized several areas around the world, including parts of Africa. Could this explain my North African DNA result?ConclusionSo it turns out that my Grandma Willis was correct about our Mayan ancestry. Unfortunately, I can't tell her that she was right because she passed away in 1991. I am left to wonder how she knew this interesting bit of information about our family history. Did she discover this when she and my Grandpa Debs visited relatives in Chiapas, Mexico in 1955?

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Magda, author of the blog, hungarianfamilyrecord.org, recently shared the website RootsMapper.comon Facebook. I checked out the website and it's pretty awesome.What is RootsMapper andwhat is its purpose? The website states the following:

"The goal of RootsMapper to is to allow you to visualize the origins of your ancestors and see how they migrated. We utilize the Google Maps API to plot and link up your family tree data that is pulled directly from FamilySearch.org in real-time."

You will need a FamilySearch account to use RootsMapper. Here's the startpage.

To use RootsMapper, press the blue "Login to FamilySearch" button at the top left side of the page. You will be redirected to theFamilySearchlogin page.

After you've signed in to FamilySearch, the magic happens.With myself set as the Root Person, RootsMapper mapped seven generations of my ancestors' origins and migration patterns. You can set the number of generations from one to seven.The pink lines represent maternal ancestors and the blue lines represent paternal ancestors. The pin color represents the gender of the ancestor – blue for males and pink for females. The numbers on the pins represent what generation they belong to.Here is my map showing seven generations. I cropped the map to show where my pins landed so it would be bigger and easier to see on my blog.Isn't this just so cool?

As you can see, my paternal ancestors (represented by those blue lines) were born in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Some of these ancestors immigratedto the United States.My maternal ancestors (represented by the pink lines) were from several different parts of the world. Those pink lines heading out into the Atlantic Ocean are actually landing on Islands - The Archipelago of the Azores and the Island of Madeira. Some of those ancestors from Portugal immigrated to Brazil. My maternal grandfather and his family, including my mother, were born in Brazil and immigrated to the United States in 1952. Other maternal ancestors were from Mexico. And still others were from the United States.You may have noticed that a lot of the pins on this map are overlapping each other. Not a problem! Just click on them, and they separate. You can see what that looks like in the screenshot below. Each of those pins represents an ancestor.

With the pins separated, you can click on each one to see the information for that specific ancestor. This can be helpful because I noticed that some of my ancestors were missing information. That could be a clue that I need to do more research, or that I simply need to add the missing information to FamilySearch.org.Also, you can changethe root person on your map by clicking on the ancestor's ID number in blue below their name.

On some of these ancestor information boxes, you will see a green "Expand Parents" box at the bottom right. If you clickthat, the map will show that ancestor's parents.

This is what happened when I clicked the "Expand Parents" button for Aaron Parsons, who was born in Massachusetts in 1737.The red arrows are pointing to the 8th generation pins that weren't there before.

When I clicked on the blue #8 pin, the ancestor informationbox for Aaron Parsons' father appeared. He was born in Massachusetts in 1712.

One more thing…you can also zoom inon the map to get a more detailed view of your ancestors' places of origin and migration patterns.

An important note – If you want an accurate map, it is very important to make sure the information contained in FamilySearch.org is correct.So, what do you think? Pretty awesomeright?

The website also has a helpful FAQ button on the bottom right side of the page. Have fun exploring RootsMapper.com!Update:Since publishing this blog post, RootsMapper.com has released version 1.0.3, which, according to their blog, includes these new features:

You can now set the generation run to 8 instead of 7.

There is no longer a green "Expand Parents" button. Instead there are pin icons.

You can now view an ancestor in FamilySearch.org by clicking on the FamilySearch tree icon next to the ancestor's name.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

This is part of a series of posts in which I share the documents relating to the travels of Watson (Frederick) Emory Webster and his family.In my previous "Thanks for Traveling Frederick!" post, I mentioned a passport application filled out by my great-grandfather, Watson (Frederick) Emory Webster, a.k.a. "The Traveling Dentist." So, here it is! Frederick's passport application dated April 17, 1907.1 He actually filled this out while he was in Mexico. The source citation states that this was an Emergency Passport Application (Issued Abroad). Hmmm. Interesting.

So, what information is contained in this passport application?

Frederick E. Webster stated he was a native and loyal citizen of the United States.

Frederick applied to the Consul at Guaymas, Mexico for a passport for himself. (Guaymas is located in the southwestern part of the Mexican state of Sonora. Why was Frederick there?)

Frederick was born in Athens, Ohio. (His birthplace is Coolville, Athens, Ohio.)

Frederick was born on February 14, 1870. (That's weird. His actual birthdate is February 14, 1864. So, why did he say he was born in 1870?)

Frederick stated that his father was a native born citizen of the United States.

Frederick stated that his permanent residence in the United States was El Paso, Texas. (Hmm. Why was he living in El Paso, Texas?)

Frederick's occupation was listed as a dentist. (No surprise here.)

Frederick stated that he left the United States on January 19, 1907.

He also stated that he was temporarily living in Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico.

Frederick stated that he intended to return to the United States within eighteen months.

Frederick stated that he desired the passport for the purpose of traveling in South America. (This is an interesting tidbit of information. Frederick eventually ended up living in Brazil and passed away there in 1946. My grandfather Debs, who was Frederick's son, and my mother were born in Brazil.)

Hurray! Frederick's signature is on the document.

Hurray again! We get a description of the applicant (Frederick).

Description of Frederick E. Webster

Age: 37 years old

Stature: 5 feet 5 inches tall

Forehead: Very high (bald)

Eyes: Blue

Nose: Medium

Mouth: Large

Chin: Medium

Hair: Brown

Complexion: Light

Face: Full

Identifying Witness for Frederick Webster – R. M. Black from Little Rock, Arkansas (Hmm. I wonder how Frederick knew this man. Did Frederick ever travel or live in Little Rock, Arkansas? Actually, I know Frederick was in Clarendon, Arkansas in 1899. And that's not too far from Little Rock. Frederick was awarded a patent in 1899. In this patent it states that Frederick was from Clarendon, Arkansas. If you'd like to see this patent, I shared it in a blog post. You can read about it by clicking HERE. It's pretty cool. And yes, it has to do with dentistry. And there are sketches of his invention included too.)

The last time I shared a travel-related document about Esther with you, she was traveling with her one-year-old daughter, Carlota. They were listed on a passenger list dated October 19, 1911.The passenger list1 I'm sharing with you today is dated late January - February of 1913. As of this date, Esther was the mother of two young daughters, Carlota and Edna. And these two daughters were Esther's traveling companions on the S.S. Voltaire sailing from Santos, Brazil to the Port of New York.

Here's a cropped portion of the passenger list.What information can we glean from this passenger list?

Esther, Carlota, and Edna sailed on the S.S. Voltaire

Port of departure – Santos, Brazil

Date of departure – January 29, 1913

Port of arrival – New York, United States

Date of arrival – February, 1913

Esther's age – 19

Esther's sex – Female

Esther's marital status – Married

Esther's place and date of birth – El Paso, Texas in 1893 (This is incorrect. She was born in Arriaga, Chiapas, Mexico. At the end of this line under the column heading "Address In United States" the correct place of birth is listed for Esther. Perhaps there was some miscommunication here. I also see another bit of incorrect information listed on this line. See the words "Husband born in Chicago, Ill." in parentheses? That is also incorrect. Frederick was born in Coolville, Athens, Ohio.)

Under the column heading "Address In United States," El Paso, Texas is listed in parentheses. I'm wondering if that's where they were headed to meet their husband and father, Frederick Webster, a.k.a. "The Traveling Dentist."

Carlota's age – 1

Carlota's sex – Female

Carlota's marital status – Single

Carlota's place and date of birth – It looks like US is crossed out and the correct place and date of birth are in the next column listed as Arriaga, Mexico in 1911. Also notice that in parentheses it says "Daughter of USC." I think it's safe to assume that USC stands for U.S. Citizen, not University of Southern California. Haha!

Edna's age – 3 months

Edna's sex – Female

Edna's marital status – Single

Edna's place and date of birth – Again, the correct information is listed in the next column over. She wasn't born in Mexico like her sister Carlota. Edna was born in Santos, Brazil in 1912.